ART ISLAND:Syros-Sophia Kyriakou

Glass bottles, plastic bags and other waste that would end up filling landfills or floating in the sea have, in the hands of some artists, become a form of sustainable art that highlights the degradation of the planet and surprises with its originality. The possibilities stretch as far as the imagination.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Sophia Kyriakou’s Archive

Sophia Kyriakou collects natural and artificial fragments from the public space and from beaches (microplastics, pieces of shells and wood) and paints these fragments of the trash of contemporary society on a well-prepared surface of volatile waste liquids. The fact that waste is a memento mori that conveys information is what visual artist Sofia Kyriakou expresses in the artworks in her exhibition entitled “Asarotron”. As Mike Kelley wrote “When the garbage is isolated, it becomes specific and may even be seen as ordered, itself; thus formalized, it loses its transgressive nature. The abject signification of the drawings is also threatened by the addition to the series of an imposter: a bush that looks the same as the garbage”. The title of the exhibition refers to “The Unswept Floor” a the mosaic adorning the dining room floor of a villa on Rome’s Aventine hill at the time of Emperor Hadrian. Pliny the Elder called this mosaic “asaroton”. It depicts the leftovers of a meal that have fallen on the floor. Unlike a painting or sculpture, one can’t easily move a mosaic if the subject becomes boring. It turns out that my hunch might have been correct, and that this floor was not a joke, but something much more serious. The mosaic’s remnants of a meal represent the death of the food. And so “The Unswept Floor” motifs point to the memento mori and the fact that although the banquet, a theatrical performance and our lives must eventually end, we must make the most of them, also, Pythagoras describes a tradition of leaving inedibles on the floor until the feast was over because this food was meant for the dead

Photo: Sophia Kyriakou, Asaroton, Volatile waste liquids and watercolor on paper, 70 x 100 cm, © Sophia Kyriakou, Courtesy the artist

Info: E. Roidis Art Hall – Cutural Center, Hermoupolis, Syros Island, Greece, Duration: 20/8-6/9/2021, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-22:00, Sat-Sun 11:30-14:00 & 19:00-22:00